First aid to babies

It is quite incredible what - and how many - topics of conversation my mother thinks will interest me. Church events that I won’t attend, techniques for administering first aid to babies, work colleagues I have never met, pregnancies of people I haven’t seen nor spoken to in at least a decade, special offers at a local supermarket… I could go on.

I was wondering last night how interested she would be if I replied with fascinating titbits from my own life and sense of priorities:‘Well today I read a fascinating message board post about a guy who became a pro poker player in Las Vegas several years ago; ooh let me tell you a new concept I picked up about certain types of starting hands in Omaha eight or better; I was going to play football on Saturday morning but it got cancelled; yesterday I went from 5pm without a cigarette and haven’t had a drink in over two days; I fancy getting a ‘Playstation 2’ but I know I will end up never playing it; its amazing how cheap you can get mp3 players on eBay blah blah blah’. Actually she might be fascinated, apart from the poker stuff.

Last night didn’t turn out so bad in the end, I finished up only $11 down, and I if I hadn’t played a $10+1 multi then it would have been a dead level evening. I know you need to be able to pick up some chips without cards in a tournament, but the strongest hand I saw in about six levels of play was KQ unsuited, not one pocket pair, no big Ace, hell hardly even a couple of suited connectors or gappers to mess around with. I won precisely two pots, and came 89th out of 360-odd entrants.

Oh well. Where it counts, in the cash games, I think I am getting more and more to grips with Pot Limit Omaha 8. I find that time and time again my decisions prove to have been the right ones. I could possibly learn when it is right to gamble a little more, but that will come with time. It can be a frustrating game, of course. Last night I decided to bet only enough on the turn to tempt two opponents to draw to (presumably) lows versus my nut high, and sadly a low river did arrive. I remain convinced that so many people play the game so badly that sooner or later I am going to have a monster win.

Somewhere in Europe

I had a nice time over the weekend, my girlfriend’s birthday. I bought her a DVD player and a few DVDs. It would be fair to say we don’t have quite the same taste in films; I mean, I like a bit of trash as much as the next man, but ‘Cheaper by the Dozen’?! ‘Bruce Almighty’?

Actually, ‘Bruce Almighty’ was quite enjoyable, and Jennifer Aniston was - of course - a bonus. Incidentally, her movie ‘The Good Girl’ is very, very good.

So last night went really well, the usual two tabling and a profit of $117 in three and a half hours. However, I suffered something even more frustrating than a terrible bad beat…

About to raise all-in with the nut straight on the turn, with $68 already in the pot, I somehow managed to misclick on the ‘Fold’ button. Ouch, ouch, ouch. Oh, how I prayed for the river to pair or flush the board so that I would have lost anyway. But no. And I had been waiting for the opportunity to nail this one cocky opponent, too.

I cannot recall ever doing that before; I am doing a reasonable job shrugging my shoulders about it, but why couldn’t it have happened in a small, insignificant pot? Why did it have to occur when I was about to win my biggest single pot of a successful evening?

I better move on, both in life and in here! So, since I spent £50 on a 64Mb MP3 player just three months ago the prices have tumbled. I could now get a 256 in the high street for the same price, and a 512 for less than that on eBay. I feel like a prize idiot. I’ll get one very soon, and perhaps give my current one away in a magnanimous gesture.

It occurred to me today that if I ever achieve my ambition of having the bankroll built to start playing for a living, then I could live pretty much anywhere. I have wanted to live somewhere in Europe for ages, somewhere with a different language that I would be forced to absorb. Oh well, more pipe dreams.

Winning at poker has been a pipe dream during the writing of this entry, tonight. I’m about $80 down in two and a half hours, with absolutely nothing going my way. It would have been nice to have won the second hand of the night, all-in versus a shortish stack for a $55 pot. I had AAKx and he had KKxx, and I estimate I was probably about a 65% favourite. I will now check the figures and see how bad that estimate is…

…Well, I was 72% favourite. It is pretty hard to be such a big favourite pre-flop at Omaha. Damn, that makes it all the more frustrating.

OK, enough. I’m playing on, waiting for that monster hand - and hoping I don’t fold it by accident.

Names and faces

It can be fun going back and reading pre-tournament predictions, after the event. Dave Colclough suggested that the huge field for this year’s WSOP championship event would mean the winner would be young and fit. Greg Raymer didn’t really fit the bill, did he? Colclough writes some really enjoyable stuff when talking about his own experiences, rather than the contractually-obliged basic strategy material. If you can find any of his old ‘Inside Le Cerveau’ columns on pokerineurope.com you should find that they raise a smile or two. Actually, here’s a link: (coming soon!)

Something or other in something he wrote recently made me think back upon the occasions when I have played poker with ‘names’. I promised in my first ever post to write about playing against a former world champion, so we’ll start with that one.

Who was it? Why, none other than Steve Davis, former world snooker champion (five or six times). He plays regularly at a site I frequent, and I have had a few chats with him at the PLO tables while he folds hand after hand and drinks red wine. I got a couple of snooker tips off him, which was nice.

Online that’s about it, although I did take a decent Omaha pot from high-in-the-European rankings, WSOP event runner-up (this year) Gary Bush some time back. I called his all-in bet on the river, with nothing but unimproved Aces – I had a huge stack at the time and his bet screamed ‘don’t call me please’. Not sure what he was doing playing 50c/$1 blinds, but then you do hear how broke a lot of these tournament specialists are – even the ‘successful’ ones. I think he has sponsorship now.

‘Live’, I have played briefly with Barny Boatman and Joe Beevers of the Hendon mob, in charity tournaments, as well as the multiple wig/sunglasses-wearing Jac Arama of ‘Late Night Poker’ notoriety. It was interesting playing with Barny, because there were a number of ways in which he was doing things that went beyond playing the actual cards; an education to me at that time as to how good some players really are. Having said which, I outlasted him that day, heh heh…

So that’s ‘me and the stars’ dealt with. Have you noticed I stopped calling the girl I am seeing ‘The Girl I am Seeing’ and started calling her ‘my girlfriend’? I realised all this cool, detached stuff isn’t really me, and as long as she knows that I’m not going to move in with her (or anyone) at any point then ‘girlfriend’ is fine. I’m experiencing some not-entirely-admirable pleasure at the moment from the fact that at least two guys she works with fancy her in a big way, but she’s with me, me, me. Sad I know, woman as trophy, but I never claimed to be perfect. Or even particularly good.

I have next Friday and the following Monday off. Lovely. Lots of late rising and poker. If any of my friends or family were reading this (heaven forbid) I would say ‘Your Christmas present could depend on those two days’.

Finally, I am contemplating giving up alcohol. I did it for two years, a long time ago, and never really missed it. Of course, I ought to give up cigarettes too. But not gambling.